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Saturday, Benoit Schwarz, the last rock-throwing member of Peter de Cruz’s Team Switzerland, replaced him.

Riesen, chosen 14th overall in the 1997 draft by the Edmonton Oilers out of Switzerland, was a spectacular bust.

If Schwarz hadn’t registered four significant Swiss misses, the watchmakers and chocolatiers could have resulted in an early upset over the cod-catchers from Canada as the Edmonton 2017 Men’s World Curling Championship opened Saturday.

“I flashed three times,” said Schwarz of sending airballs through the house on last rock tosses.

“We had control from the start. The first three ends were really good ends,” said de Cruz. “We almost could have made the difference right at the beginning but unfortunately we didn’t.

“They had their misses, too. Mark Nichols, who usually shoots close to 100 per cent wasn’t at 100 per cent this game. The ice was very difficult for everyone out there.”

Schwarz curled 74 per cent. Only de Cruz, throwing second rocks, was worse, at 71 per cent.

The game, if nothing else, managed to provide a scare for Gushue, Nichols, Brent Gallant and Geoff Walker. And that’s not a bad thing considering the recent history of the event.

Three of the last four to be held in Canada have been won by European teams. Three straight had been won by nations other than Canada until Kevin Koe won last year.

Gushue lost the draw-to-the-button to open the game to give de Cruz the hammer and if it wasn’t for the first Swiss miss on the last shot of the first end, Canada could have been down 4-0 out of the gate.

Schwarz was attempting an angle raise, threw it wide and had to settle for two. He only missed by half a inch. There was no flash there.

In the seventh end a flash cost him three and the game as a one-point lead turned into a two-point deficit in a 7-5 loss.

Gushue and crew didn’t exactly shoot the lights out either, the skip checking in a 82 per cent and Nichols at 88 per cent.

When Gushue left the ice after the game played on an outside sheet he said a lot of it was a combination of ice and rocks.

“There were a lot of misses out there. The rocks are really sharp and there was frost out there as well. Those misses are going to happen out there with the ice and the sharp rocks,” said Gushue in his best Kevin Martin rant after the game.

“Nobody is going to curl 90 per cent. It’s just not going to happen. The conditions aren’t conducive to that. I’m confident they’ll get there because Jamie Bourassa is one of the best icemakers in the world and he’ll get it figured out. But these rocks have to get curled down until we see guys curl 90 per cent or 95 per cent out there.”

The rocks are World Curling Federation rocks, not the usual Curling Canada rocks used for the Brier and other major events in this nation.

Gushue, the 2006 Olympic gold medal winner who finally won the Brier in his 14th try, hasn’t played in a Worlds before.

“If I hadn’t missed four of my first six shots we certainly wouldn’t have been in the situation we found ourselves in early. There were a lot of misses by both teams and it really came down to the ice conditions. I don’t think it was a matter of anybody performing poorly.

“It wasn’t the same as we play at the Brier or Jamie’s typical ice where you know where to put the broom on every shot.

“It was guesswork.

“They got caught on a lot of the big shots.

“With that kind of ice it comes down to a little bit of luck and we got a little lucky with a couple of misses on Benoit’s last shots. And it was more the rocks than the ice. They’re super sharp. Maybe overnight they just need to run those rocks up and down the ice all night to dull them. Basically it’s use.

“But these are as sharp as I’ve ever seen a set of rocks to start a competition.”

The bottom line for Gushue, who plays Russia in the morning draw and two-time world champion Niklas Edin of Sweden in the evening draw Sunday, is that at the end of the day only one thing mattered.

“We got the win,” he said.

And it wasn’t like it was a complete nightmare out there.

“The crowd was awesome. It was fun out there. I enjoyed it, other than I had no idea where to put the broom or what weight to throw, I had a lot of fun.”